RFPIO to Support QAD’s Global RFP Management Efforts

- September 26, 2017

RFPIO, a leading provider of cloud-based RFP (Request For Proposal) response software, has been selected by QAD, a global provider of manufacturing ERP software, to support their RFP process. RFPIO will provide technology to streamline QAD’s proposal management efforts by automating repetitive tasks, centralizing RFPs and security questionnaires and encouraging collaboration among key stakeholders.

QAD’s primary goal was to create a scalable, repeatable process for handling large RFPs and security questionnaires. They evaluated several proposal management solutions, undergoing trials to find technology that suited the needs of their organization. After a process involving participation and feedback from team members across departments, QAD chose RFPIO as their application.

“What separated RFPIO from other offerings was their ability to support large enterprise software RFPs, which require coordination and input from many across our global organization,” stated Keith Braney, QAD’s Senior Manager Global Sales and Marketing Operations. “Response accuracy is critical to us, and RFPIO’s answer library makes SME approval and maintenance of prior responses very easy. Multi-language support is also helpful for adoption in our globally distributed organization.”

Organizations commonly spend significant time and resources responding to requests for proposal. In RFPIO’s recent RFP Response Habits survey of over 100 organizations, 93 percent of responders revealed that multiple team members are required to complete RFP responses, with nearly half requiring at least a team of six. However, only 16 percent of these teams are using proposal management software to streamline their process and largely depend on a manual approach to RFP response.

RFPIO’s intelligent proposal automation and content library supports organizations throughout the sales cycle. With the ability to invite multiple contributors and reviewers to each RFP response project and suggest relevant content, RFPIO was an ideal partner for QAD.

“RFPIO’s solution is extremely robust, but also evolving rapidly,” said Braney. “Any feedback we had on potential improvements was implemented very quickly. The RFPIO support and development is excellent. We evaluated many other solutions, but the customer experience and quick configurations are really what sold us on RFPIO’s ability to meet our needs.”

“With QAD, we see a partnership rather than a vendor/client relationship,” said Ganesh Shankar, CEO at RFPIO. “The product enhancement requests we received from QAD have greatly helped us increase the capabilities of our platform. We already see a great reception of these features by our other customers, which also confirms our philosophy that addressing user feedback is key to RFPIO’s success.”

The robust reporting features will allow QAD to view deeper insights and receive status updates for every RFP response project. The sales team and executives will have data visibility directly from Salesforce dashboards, without needing to log into RFPIO’s platform, which is intended to allow them to make data-driven management decisions. Very little training is necessary to use RFPIO, and teams can be up and running within one day.

QAD is now looking at other ways they can integrate RFPIO into their daily operation. Already users who have completed RFPs using the application have experienced positive results.

“In the short time QAD has been using RFPIO, I have been truly impressed by the solution and the potential results,” said Braney. “We expect the time saved by using RFPIO to allow for even more focus on our customers and their success. It’s pretty incredible—and we’re excited to roll out this valuable solution to our team members globally.”